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In the Big Discussion we bring together a panel of industry experts and focus on one key topic within the field service sector.
In the final part of our series on dynamic scheduling our panellists, FieldAware's Mark Tatarsky and Fast Lean Smart's Chris Welsh are asked if SMEs can also benefit from optimised scheduling.

Can smaller and medium sized organisations benefit from optimised scheduling, or is it only beneficial for enterprise-level field service providers?

Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware
Advances in cloud computing, multi-tenant SaaS solutions, and new micro and macro optimised scheduling capabilities enable optimised scheduling to scale down. Optimization is now an effective solution for organizations of all sizes.

Micro optimisation enables service delivery firms to build a library of business policies that can be used to tune the optimiser to create a work schedule for an individual team or region. The business policy contains the rules that ensure competing business objectives are balanced appropriately. The rules ensure the right field technicians are considered for the work while managing business objectives such as limiting travel time, delivering priority work, or balancing the number of jobs across the team. 

The business policy library can cover how the team should work in various business scenarios. These can include an emergency schedule; prioritising installations at the end of the reporting period to assist in achieving revenue targets; during seasonal changes, etc.

Running the service delivery business is easier when you select the business policies you want to apply to different teams and then change them as needed to reflect the changes in their business. The benefits of accelerating time to value and reducing the cost and complexity of maintenance that a micro optimised schedule provides small and medium sized organisations equally apply to the enterprise.


Chris Welsh, Director, FLS – FAST LEAN SMART
Yes, most definitely, optimised scheduling will help even small service operations that are performing multiple jobs per day to be more efficient and deliver reliable customer service – essential in an ever more competitive industry where customer expectations are rising.

Even with a handful of engineers, there are thousands or millions of possible permutations for job assignment and most providers will resort to allocating work according to postcode patches. This makes it easy to allocate jobs but the ‘hard borders’ between resources can be the greatest inefficiency for field service delivery and you might turn down an appointment request that was actually achievable and cost effective. 

An optimised schedule considers all resources and travel time without these hard borders and, in my experience of performing scheduling tests, an optimised schedule compared to a manual schedule will typically reveal a 25%-50% reduction in mileage whilst making sure appointments agreed are achievable - that might be 1 to 2 hours saving per day for the engineer to do that extra job.
Perhaps equally important, only engineers with the right skills and parts turn up and engineers get home on time! This contributes to greater employee engagement and to the success of the company.

In the Big Discussion we bring together a panel of industry experts and focus on one key topic within the field service sector.
In the third of a four part series on dynamic scheduling our panellists, FieldAware's Mark Tatarsky and Fast Lean Smart's Chris Welsh identify the biggest mistakes companies make when implementing a scheduling system.

What is the biggest mistake field service companies make when implementing scheduling solutions?

Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware
Companies often expect a ‘silver bullet.’ They aren’t prepared for the challenges that come with a successful implementation. One problem is capturing the implicit decision-making processes used by dispatchers today. Another is looking at how those processes can be enhanced to take advantage of new optimisation capabilities.

These tasks can seem daunting but are essential to define the rules and objectives of the optimisation engine and give valuable results. However, by phasing the implementation initially with manual or semi-automated scheduling, service organizations can achieve faster adoption while simultaneously creating a positive environment.

The company can define what it wants to accomplish by implementing schedule optimization so that it can give appropriate weighting to seeminglyconflicting objectives. FSM vendors have a parallel role to play here. To minimize friction during adoption, vendors should create intuitive workflows.

These workflows include setting up rules, objectives, working time, etc. Vendors can also help instil confidence in the solution by providing feedback and visualisation of optimization results. These metrics allow dispatchers to compare manual and optimized schedules.

Chris Welsh, Director, FLS – FAST LEAN SMART
The biggest mistake is not managing the ‘rate of change’. A company decides it’s objectives for performance improvement, chooses a new technology to enable automation and new processes. However, it is important to understand and manage the perception, challenges and priorities of all the stakeholders: the customer, the management team, the back office and the field force.

Introducing a scheduling solution is best considered as a journey with continuous improvement, ensuring the entire service team are engaged and ‘bought in’ along the way and change taken in steps that the business can consume. It is also important to have a system with transparent visibility of how scheduling decisions were made so users will understand and have confidence in the results.

With system design, focus on the fundamentals with a pilot area to begin with and then listen and learn from feedback. At FLS we offer this stage ‘precontract’ so there is no doubt in the technology, the business case, and what is required for deployment.

Next you refine/improve based on these learnings, show you take feedback onboard, and expand the use. Sometimes company improvements are not obvious for individuals who only see their own workload. Measuring and reporting overall statistics is therefore important not only for ROI calculation but also for positivity across the service team.

The final part of the big discussion will be published next week, when the panel are asked if SMEs can also benefit from optimised scheduling. You can read the first part of the discussion here and the second part here. 

In the Big Discussion we bring together a panel of industry experts and focus on one key topic within the field service sector.
In the second of a four part series on dynamic scheduling our panellists, FieldAware's Mark Tatarsky and Fast Lean Smart's Chris Welsh, ponder if optimised scheduling should be an accepted part of a wider FSM platform.

Should optimised scheduling still be considered as a best-of-breed solution or should it now be an expectation of wider FSM platforms?

Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware
The most significant expense for a service organisation is the cost of its field resources. In a hyper-competitive market where service delivery is a crucial differentiator, service organisations must excel at customer service delivery whilst sustaining high levels of operational productivity.

Given these increased pressures, an optimised scheduler is a core feature of any world-class FSM platform. Ensuring work schedules are compliant, deliver the intended service to the end customer, and are operationally efficient is essential.

Traditionally, providing this depth of capability was cost-prohibitive for an FSM platform. Implementation projects were either too lengthy or too complex to configure an optimizer efficiently.

Modern, micro optimisation capabilities enable service delivery companies to quickly and cost-effectively implement optimised scheduling at a team level. Moreover, for those workflows needing a manual or semi-automated scheduling, advanced FSM tools also provide options such as Planning Mode.

This capability allows schedules to be built and adjusted in a safe environment either manually or through interactive optimisation cycles. When the Planner or Dispatcher is satisfied with the scheduling outcomes, they can publish and dispatch the approved schedule to the field technician’s mobiles following the team’s dispatch policy. 

Chris Welsh, Director, FLS – FAST LEAN SMART
Making do with scheduling included in an FSM platform might seem logical, however the benefit can be so great that best-of-breed is the way to go. Not only does schedule optimisation minimise cost, it also helps ensure you can deliver on the increasing service expectations of your customers.

In 2019, I believe it reasonable to set the minimum bar at the following capabilities to describe field service scheduling as ‘optimised’: 
1. Dynamic schedule optimisation to incorporate all engineers and jobs over a substantial radius, not just assigning work to an engineer because it’s their patch or have a space to fill in the diary;
2. Route calculation with actual average driving speeds for each road segment according to the time of day.

FLS are one of the few companies with this expertise, honing our solutions for over 25 years to provide the fastest, leanest and smartest configurable algorithms that can be integrated easily into any established FSM solution or new project.

Our customers are using most of the leading FSM/CRM/ERP technologies and FLS are happy to prove the benefit free of charge, starting with a scheduling test to compare how FLS VISITOUR would have scheduled your work - expect to be amazed at the unlocked potential!

The third part of the big discussion will be published next week, when the panel diagnose the biggest mistakes companies make when implementing a scheduling system. You can read the first part of the discussion here. 

Fleet managers are set to gain valuable insights into how innovative data management can help them future-proof their businesses at TomTom Telematics’ Let’s Explore 2019 on September 12 in Surrey, UK.

In the Big Discussion we bring together a panel of industry experts and focus on one key topic within the field service sector.
In the first of a new four part series, we turn our attention to dynamic scheduling where our panel includes FieldAware's Mark Tatarsky and Fast Lean Smart's Chris Welsh...

Given the increasing challenges of last-mile service delivery, how crucial is optimised scheduling for field service excellence?

Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware
As markets become hyper-competitive, service delivery has become a key differentiator in winning and retaining customers.
Delivering consistent, high-quality service in the last mile is essential. New sources of competition are entering from different verticals, and service organisations are required to support a broader range of products, service offerings, and customers across both metropolitan and rural regions.

These increasing competitive pressures have service organizations turning to optimized scheduling to improve the delivery of their service commitments. Optimized scheduling now encapsulates the workflows, decision-making processes, and the criteria service providers use to execute on the customer journey and create genuine differentiation consistently.  

Key to this approach is new generation optimisation engines. These modern optimisation tools provide the ability to configure “micro scheduling.” These new tools enable providers to uniquely configure optimisation capabilities to support different team sizes, multiple product lines, as well as regional and seasonality needs.

This approach of building business policies that reflect optimisation needs at an atomic level provides the basis for rapid time to value. Micro scheduling not only facilitates efficient execution of the initial implementation, but it also helps with the introduction of new service lines, products, and regions. It enables service providers to react to and create a competitive advantage based on changes in the market and seasonal demands.

Chris Welsh, Director, FLS – FAST LEAN SMART
Last mile service delivery has always relied on good scheduling for field service excellence. With increasing pressure to achieve more with less and time-window/SLA expectations shortening, it is harder than ever to achieve this well without a schedule optimiser.

The best scheduling technology will not only plan accurately but also have ability to dynamically react in real-time to the progress of travel and work changes on the day. Engineer job allocation will re-optimise automatically to ensure priorities, including emergency jobs, are best met within available resources, highlighting SLA’s or appointments that will be missed so a Planner can override by exception.

This dynamic operation does not suit all service businesses and the technology is flexible. For example, many appointment based companies want the schedule finalised and ‘fixed’ for engineers the night before.

In this case the system will display real-time progress and give accurate prediction of when appointment windows will not be met or the engineer late home. By exception, the company may then decide to reassign using system recommendations.

The further importance for optimised scheduling is the ability to provide auto notification of arrival times and Uber-style tracking the engineer’s arrival by the customer on their phone. FLS were ahead when we launched this with FLS Portal last year and the function is increasingly an expectation for field service. 

The second part of the big discussion will be published next week, when the panel are asked if optimised scheduling should be an accepted part of a wider FSM platform.

Kinesis is to make its popular vehicle tracking service more widely available to potential partners in the UK and overseas following the announcement of a re-seller programme.

The Crewe-based provider of telematics offers a unique online platform that, since its launch in 2015, has already attracted over 20,000 customers in the UK and is being used to track 130,000 vehicles worldwide. 

 

To underpin further growth, Kinesis is now seeking suppliers in the fleet sector who want to add value to their business with a tracking service that is particularly easy to use and integrate with other solutions. Built as a modern cloud solution from the outset, Kinesis is designed to incorporate fuel card data, giving fleet operations managers a single platform for their insight and performance activity.

 

“Kinesis has been a big hit since launch not only because it is very affordable, accessible and easy to use but because it also offers a one stop shop for fuel and telematics. This appeals to busy managers who are always looking to get more done in less time,” comments Jez Strong, Strategic Alliance Director at Kinesis.

 

Because of this integration capabilities, Kinesis - their team pictured above - believe fuel card companies will be especially interested, and the company has already signed reseller agreements with Drive Card, Wex, DKV, Certas and Fuelmate. Elsewhere, the Kinesis team are confident that suppliers of fleet software, financial services, and insurance will particularly benefit in offering a telematics service due to it adding increasing value. 

 

“With our recent acquisitions of telematics businesses the group has boosted its technical capability and resources in this area and that has given us a strong platform for growth.  The company has already established a presence in the US, Europe and the Far East and by making Kinesis more widely available through partners, we will be well placed to meet the demands of what continues to be a growing market,” says Greville Coe, Group Managing Director - Telematics at Radius Payment Solutions, the company behind Kinesis.  

 

Kinesis offers real time monitoring with the provision of arrival time and vehicle location data to customers, with added features such as a mobile app, vehicle-use data and driver performance analysis. 

 

“Kinesis provides a forthright solution for fleet managers operating in a range of sectors from across the globe and as the company looks to expand internationally, it is clear that this programme will be central to any future growth,” added Strong. 

 

 

Momentum IoT was named the winner at the 2019 CompassIntel Spring Awards in the category of Connected Solution Leadership: Fleet Tracking Management for IoT and M2M.

The awards are voted on by over 40 industry-leading press, editors, journalists, thought leaders and analysts who identify the best in three primary categories: Mobile & Wireless, IoT (Internet of Things), and Emerging Tech, along with CompassIntel.com selected “of the Year” awards.

“We’re excited to recognize the innovation that Momentum IoT has introduced to connecting assets with ease and simplicity,” says Stephanie Atkinson, CEO and Founder of Compass Intelligence.  “Momentum IoT has made fleet tracking affordable and achievable for small to medium sized businesses.”

Momentum IoT disrupted the fleet tracking model by utilizing a SaaS payment model, so there are no contracts or upfront fees to use the platform.  The tracker is cloud-based and does not require customization, so users can plug the device into their asset and view them on one screen.  Additionally, the company also offers a free trial of its products.

“We’re honored to receive this award,” says Justin Silva, CEO of Momentum IoT.  “We’ve set ourselves apart through the ease of use and ruggedness of our design coupled with providing the highest level of security available with no contracts.  We want to make telematics accessible to everyone and will continue to be a solutions-based leader in our field.”

New working relationship for BT Fleet Solutions and Winton Engineering announced at Commercial Vehicle Show...


In a move to enhance the benefits both businesses can provide to customers, BT Fleet Solutions and Winton Engineering have agreed a new working relationship to provide maintenance and servicing on Winton Engineering systems using BT Fleet Solutions’ network of garages and mobile engineers.

The contract will allow BT Fleet Solutions to better service both internal and external customers’ vehicles with on-vehicle power systems. Having worked together through mutual customers since 2006, this relationship is the logical next step for the businesses who are both highly-respected suppliers in the UK utility sector.

Simon Ungless, business development director at BT Fleet Solutions, said: “Winton Engineering’s systems are used by many BT Fleet Solutions utility customers, so the additional services we will now provide will serve to further strengthen our product offering and relationships with these customers.”.

For Winton Engineering’s existing customers this will provide increased coverage for maintenance and servicing of the Winton on-vehicle power systems. It will also provide them with a greater flexibility for systems to be serviced either on site using one of BT Fleet Solutions’ mobile engineers, or at one of BT’s 65 garage locations, reducing the time and fuel required by customers to reach their nearest available site.

Winton customers using BT Fleet Solutions will also have the added benefit of being able to get their vehicles serviced at the same time in addition to servicing the Winton systems, a significant potential reduction in VOR (vehicle off road) time.

Andy Jones, managing director at Winton Engineering, commented, “BT Fleet Solutions is a respected name in the UK utility market and so working with them matches nicely with the positive reputation that the Winton on-vehicle power systems have for robustness, reliability and efficiency.”